A case for in-game VoIP

I heard FAF or FA or something is supposed to be good too. I just don't know.

I don't know what they should do, but starting with ingame pings is a start, I never chat with people on Portal 2 but I have memorized how to ping everything on that game and it works very well and is 100% usable because everyone gets them no mic necesary. The dedicated players option is the mic, and if they have a mic they have the ability to get on a chat program, if they are in the middle where they have a mic and don't have effort to go on a chat program when displayed right in front of them, then they probably are better off falling into the ping-quickchat user category anyway.

Well i usually have a small group of people that i voice with, we win ALOT of games, no joke, voice does allow for faster coms so it is pretty amazing how well it works.

but I argue that it isn't the voice that wins it. Its the preorganization and effort. The kind of guy who establishes preorganized teams, is the same that uses personal chat, and they usually study the game and multitask based on what they observe teammates doing and needing.

the kind of guy who doesn't, well, he may be good on his own, but he probably doesn't research the game or plan out which teammate does what or watch out for his teammate or sway from his playstyle for a teammate. Matter of fact, he might not have a mic at that rate, meaning you won't chat to him anyway.

I know that in-game VOIP will never happen for PA (and rightly so), and apps like Mumble/TeamSpeak work better and have better performance anyway, and it would be nice if hooks into those apps were provided and made easy for people to use. However, having said all of that, I would like to see something new for RTS gaming implemented for PA, that might be a lot easier to develop, and frankly, as I see it, be the best option with all things considered (dev resources, general player technical savvy, players that don't have/use mics, bandwidth considerations, server performance impact, etc.). The best example of the in-game option that I'm talking about is the built in, pre-scripted, quick comm system called Commo-Rose that was implemented in BF3 (anf BF4). I've attached an even more detailed variation of this that could work with a map ping feature to also include icons at the selected pinged location on the map that would correlate with the option chosen from this "quick-comm" system (or UberComm system to coin a term).

For those of you who aren't familiar with how the BattleField Commo-Rose system works, it allows a player to quickly send pre-set voice messages in game to other players on your team.

How this could work in PA:
First the player would activate the ping feature (by selecting it from the menu, or hotkey), then after pressing and holding the left mouse button on the map at the desired location, a pop-up menu would appear (similar to the one I posted below) where the player could choose from a variety of commonly used messages/commands. After choosing one from the menu, the message would be heard by all of your teammates, and the corresponding icon would appear on the map at the selected location. Obviously a temporary effect similar to the one used to pick your spawn location at the beginning of the game, to draw attention to where that location was on the map for your teammates, would be required as well. There might also be a config menu option giving players a way to configure how long that signal effect and map icon would remain on the map. I also see mods being used here to substitute in various effects for that signal effect, like the one just used in Metabolical's recent Twitch feed (http://www.twitch.tv/metabolical/c/3592564), which would be awesome!



If implemented well enough, I believe that a system like this could effectively replace the need for a VOIP solution for many players.

You already need to keep track of and do a lot of things quickly to play well. Having to *also* muck around with pre-defined radio signals and such would add to it.

I can't speak to how other people play the game. The way I play it, voice is essential. E.g. just go watch Zaphod's videos on YouTube; you just can't coordinate like that without voice unless someone truly comes up with a completely unique and original solution that I can't think of.

As for these claims that it's easy to get randoms in - I don't think I can ever convince anyone, I just know it's not true, or at least not true in my observable universe. Maybe there is something different about how people who claim it's not a problem play, or how they arrange matches. My purpose is having VoIP available in *every* game to everyone who has a headset, and without fuss and pain. That is the only way I have *ever* seen VoIP work with randoms. I am assuming/hoping PA will at some point have an auto-match making system where you just hit "play" (after selecting type of game) and get launched into a game with players of comparable skill. You want voice to just *be* there. Again, maybe integration with a native client (and making it default/very visible) like TeamSpeak is enough. But the key is: It has to just *be* there, and not need mucking about, convincing people, chatting people addresses, etc etc.

In game voip is used and implemented masterfully by Eve Online. 10's of 1000's of players at any given time and it works like butter on toast.

I love PA but realistically I don't expect we will ever see 10000 games going at once. Voip is actually pretty low overhead when properly optimized. As demonstrated by Eve Online.

I believe that ingame voip will actually require less overhead on the client side than teamspeak does now, and the quality of life benefit is immense. Whether in game or on teamspeak it still takes a slice of each players individual bandwidth while it's in use. So why not use a method that will be ideally optimized for PA?

As long as there is a option to deactivate VoIP completely I don't see a reason why Uber shouldn't work on it after the game is done.

VOIP is a rough addition, mainly because of the amount of man hours it would take to implement something like that.
First you have to pick your protocol(SIP[http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3261], IAX [http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5456]).
Second, you'll have to pic your software. Maintaining something like this during the lifespan of a game is a huge undertaking.
Third, you have to make it look good.

It's not an easy problem to solve, mainly because of the amount of capital you need in inject into your RND and your regression tests to make sure that your protocol implementation doesn't break. It's a feature that has a huge pricetag. Great startup material.

Lets not talk about the legalities of it.

Nobody practically uses Eve or Planetside 2. I wouldn't have a case to argue if I didn't happen to stumble across actual gameplay of both recently. Planetside 2 is actually fully functional in my opinion, but honestly the text chat is rather complicated, the VoiP is fully functional yet distorts shutters and doesn't work for all so all the usual errors but I hear others on it and I can use it from getgo so I consider it fully functional, yet the ingame pinging and the ingame quickchat (V+1-10) is simple quick and specific, so that is an snapshot of the difficulty and actual use out of such a feature.

Still not sold that it can be done, be done well, and be worthwhile. I think it will either be done poorly, be done but not useful, be done but annoying, be done but look low quality and make the game look ameteurly programmed, or consume many resources to question it's necesity.

Integration with TS3 and some form of in-game posted-everywhere usable TS3 server eliminates most those problems. Just forgetting about voice chat and opting for another form of simple use-by-all accurate communication is sublime as well.

I don't think that you got the point of my post. Sighting the fact that Uber has maintained that VOIP will never happen, I offered an in game alternative to having to chat to random teammates. Never did I imply that a pre-defined quick comm system would be superior to VOIP. I simply meant that the option was superior to simple chat. Also, have you ever played BF3, or BF4? Initiating one of the messages only takes seconds, and with map information to augment the info. being communicated, it would be far superior to simple chat.

Quickly press stuff to relay information, sounds fine to me.

v2, repair, v5, come, v8, watch out...

To be honest, if they used catergories, they could both be specific with information and have more options of information. so v-2-1 repair commander, v-2-2 repair that factory, combine with pings to give context to chat signals, v-1-1 thank you v-1-2 sorry v-1-3 good job v-1-4 hello, ect...

Exactly! I just didn't modify the picture I posted to coincide with the actual PA relevant options, but I thought it got the point across. Maybe some people need to see the actual options before it makes sense to them? I do think that too many options could get unruly though, so you'd have to play around with that to get the right mix. Having said that, unlike FPS games where seconds matter, you would have more time to make your communication selections in an RTS game, so you could probably manage a few more options to select from.

Why not use WebRTC? You just need an up to date webbrowser to make it work.
Uber could host a semi-official WebRTC server. WebRTC is peer-to-peer, so the server is only used to gather people, avoiding most of the cost.
It's kinda new for the moment, but it begin to be quite well implemented in current web browser.

Here is an example: https://talky.io/

Yes, I've played BF3, BF4, other games that do similar things, etc. I agree that it is needed; the ability to eg put markers/pings on the ground and other similar features is vital even if you *do* have voice communication going too.

But, it's not a *substitute* for voice-comm. You're not going to do strategic planning, discussions, etc over that. Even for things that are technically possible with what you propose, the more complex the notion is the more time it takes and the less likely you are to be able to do it in a rush when you have to act quickly.

In any case, I accept there won't be voicecom built-in. I'm just baffled that it seems many people don't see why voice is a crucial feature.

I think the most important bit, on the premise that VoIP won't happen, is to have adequate pinging/marking/etc features available.